The European Commission and European Space Agency have opened a center in Fucino, Italy, that will be responsible for mission control of the Galileo satellite navigation system. A center in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, is responsible for satellite control.
Meredith Siegfried (see photos) has been promoted to president of Nordam . She was chief operating officer of the company’s Repair Group. She was vice president of the Global Engineering and Quality, Repair Group. Basil Barimo is now vice president/general manager of the Repair Division and Global Technical Operations. Steve Pack is responsible for all of Nordam’s manufacturing operations as chief operating officer of the Manufacturing Group.
Michael T. Strianese, L-3 chairman, president and CEO, has been received the John W. Dixon Award from the Association of the U.S. Army . Strianese received the award for his company’s ongoing contributions to the U.S. armed forces and the defense industry.
Gregory D. Blaney has been named director of NASA ’s Independent Verification and Validation program, which provides software verification and validation services, as well as software safety assurance for the agency’s most critical missions. Blaney has been acting director since December 2009 and will continue to lead the facility’s day-to-day operations.
When David Neeleman was much younger, someone influential in his life must have taught him to think big and learn from his setbacks, because the combination have served this 51-year-old aviation entrepreneur well.
Intelsat is hopeful it can recover use of a wayward communications satellite that had wreaked havoc with operators around the world until it was finally shut down just prior to Christmas. Dubbed Zombie Sat,Galaxy 15 went out of control on April 5, sending operators scrambling to protect their spacecraft from interference. During the next six months, the spacecraft flew by a dozen satellites, in some cases coming to within a tenth of the distance normally maintained between geostationary satcoms (AW&ST May 24, 2010, p. 23).
The Russian government is struggling to compensate for a Proton launch failure that dashed hopes of having a full 24-unit Glonass navigation satellite constellation in service by the end of 2010.
Aviastar-SP completed the first flight of the Tupolev Tu-204SM on Dec. 29. The SM is aimed at giving the Tu-204, in production since 1989, another lease on life. It features a slightly lighter airframe, more modern avionics, a two-pilot cockpit, a new auxiliary power unit and improved Perm PS-90A2 engines designed by Russian Aviadvigatel with Pratt & Whitney. Next year, Aviastar-SP plans to produce another prototype of the SM, with an aim to complete type certification tests by 2012. However, the future of the upgrade remains unclear.
French armaments agency DGA has qualified the MM40 Block 3 Exocet antiship missile, which is intended for France’s Horizon and Fremm frigates, for active service. The first four of an initial batch of 45 Block 3s, which will double the range of the Exocet and give it a land-strike capability, were delivered in mid-December; the remainder are due by mid-2013.
In the Nov. 18, 2002, edition of Aviation Week & Space Technology featuring a special report on the airline industry, the cover text exclaimed, “Restructure . . . Or Die.” At the time, low productivity, high costs and an onslaught of low-fare carriers grabbing market share were the bane of most large airlines’ existence, especially in the U.S. and Europe.
Neel Shah has been promoted to senior vice president and chief cargo officer and Chris Collette to senior vice president-supply chain management for Delta Air Lines. Shah joined Delta from United Airlines Cargo, where he was vice president-sales and marketing. Collette came from Northwest Airlines.
USMC Gen. (ret.) Peter Pace has been named to the board of directors of the AAR Corp. He was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2005-07 and is now a member of the Secretary of Defense’s Defense Policy Board.
Liquid fuel rocket engines, high-speed Internet communications and hyperspectral imaging technologies are among the highlights of a new 10-year space spending plan drawn up by the Italian government. The plan, unveiled last week by Italian Space Agency ASI, will also seek to shift more spending to domestic programs and spread the spending burden for the International Space Station (ISS) extension, currently awaiting approval by the European Space Agency member states, by making ISS utilization a mandatory ESA program.
An Ariane 5 carrying the Hispasat-1E and Koreasat 6 satellites was launched Dec. 29 from the European space center at Kourou, French Guiana. The Space Systems Loral-built, 5,320-kg. (11,700-lb.) Hispasat-1E was placed in an orbital slot at 30 deg. West. The Thales Alenia Space Koreasat 6, with a weight of 2,850 kg., was placed at 116 deg. East. Both spacecraft are designed for 15 years in orbit.
The British government plans to unveil a new defense and security industrial and technology policy this year that will spell out the national industrial capabilities deemed essential to meetnational security needs, even in an age of austerity.
Spirit AeroSystems was in the early days of designing the most intricate of Boeing’s single-wind composite sections for the 787 when Sikorsky sought it out to make the main fuselage for the CH-53K for the U.S. Marine Corps.
William F. Marrison has received the American Association of Airport Executives ’ Distinguished Service Award for his “numerous and significant contributions to the airport community at the local and national levels.” Marrison is a 28-year veteran of the Metropolitan Knoxville (Tenn.) Airport Authority.
A new pact that streamlines how government-backed export credit agencies should support sales by aircraft manufacturers is expected to win approval soon. The draft agreement reached Dec. 22 by the intra-government Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) would eliminate differences in financing support for large and regional aircraft and tighten lending terms to minimize the gap between export banks and commercial lenders. The deal has been presented to Brazil, Canada, the European Union, Japan and the U.S.
This time last year, Jeffery Smisek was settling into his new role as chairman, president and CEO of Continental Airlines, but within four months he had initiated, by some key measures, the creation of the world’s largest airline. Smisek, now president and CEO of United Continental Holdings, is Aviation Week & Space Technology’s Person of the Year. Cover design by Art Director Lisa Caputo; photos by Lenny Gilmore (Smisek) and Managing Editor James R. Asker (Chicago O’Hare International Airport).
Charles O’Dell, director of operations of Sun Air Jets, has been named to the board of governors of the Air Charter Safety Foundation . O’Dell joined Sun Air Jets in 2002, is an active flight instructor and airline transport pilot with more than 12,300 hr.
Boeing is poised to issue a revised 787 program schedule following the resumption of flight tests on Dec. 23. Initial flights will focus on an interim version of updated power distribution system software and are aimed at Boeing-specific aircraft systems evaluation rather than FAA certification, according to the company. The revised target for this milestone, as well as the planned first delivery to launch customer All Nippon Airways, is widely expected to be around mid-2011, or three to four months beyond the current mid-February schedule.
Flight testing of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter enters 2011 at a stepped-up pace, but with many key 2010 objectives still unmet and significant program changes looming. While the program exceeded its year-end target of 394 flights, the objectives of clearing the conventional-takeoff-and-landing (CTOL) variant to begin pilot training, and the short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (Stovl) version for training and initial ship trials, were not accomplished as planned in 2010.
